Willenskraft
by 1arigato
Summary: Shinigami never bothered much with the Human World, so they were oblivious to a secretive, underground world called the mafia. Even then, both Shinigami and Quincy didn't know of dying will flames, a power Vongola and its allies liked to keep secret. Except Namimori and Karakura were neighbors, and Souken knew who to contact when Uryuu accidentally set a tree on fire. Oneshot


Ishida Uryuu lifted his eyes to rest on the smiling, stereotypical sports jockey figure. Souken curled wrinkly fingers around his grandson's shoulder in warm support from behind, and the old Ishida returned a smile to the teenager standing immediately in front of Uryuu. Behind and to the right of the teen was another — this one with a slight frown that could be taken as irritated or apathetic.

"Yamamoto Takeshi-kun is going to help you understand your power, Uryuu," Souken introduced, and the jockey in front of Uryuu dipped his head in a quick bow of greetings. "Your old man contacted Tsuna when he saw you burn a tree down!" the labeled Yamamoto cheerily shared in contrast with his statement, and the silver-haired teen at the back snorted in annoyance at his companion's tone.

Uryuu supposed he had not given a negative first impression if the lack of hostile responses or intent directed at Uryuu was telling. The young Quincy had not told anyone yet, but he discovered he could sense emotions from individuals if he tried, although searching for such things was a lot easier when the individuals had a lot of spiritual energy, like the two older Ishida males and — oddly enough — the two teenagers before Uryuu.

"Sawada Tsunayoshi is the future Vongola Decimo," Souken described for his grandson, and Uryuu instinctively noted in his head to begin learning Italian alongside his German and Spanish. He could hear the capitals in his grandfather's speech; this Tsuna was a familiar figure with grandfather, Yamamoto, and his friend behind him, most likely because of the political position he held. The energy catastrophe Uryuu accidentally caused when he practiced his Quincy archery alone the other day was connected to this foreign political party somehow, and at this revelation, the young Ishida didn't know what he felt about it.

Guilt rushed into Uryuu in recollection of when he ruined grandfather's yard. The wild, blue energy that burst from his fingertips the moment an arrow left his bow was startling enough to briefly frighten him when it had happened, and it resulted in a dead tree and a scorched circle of destruction around it. Grandfather must have scheduled this meeting in hopes of Uryuu controlling the violent power before anyone could get hurt.

"What must I do?" Uryuu asked, and Yamamoto's smiling face slipped away for a shocked expression. Uryuu suppressed the urge to shift. Had he said something wrong? He briefly considered brushing up against Yamamoto's energy to feel the main emotion dominating the jockey, before waving the thought away just as quickly. Privacy was a thing of everyone's right.

A friendly clap of Uryuu's shoulder surprised him, and obvious cheeriness flickered in Yamamoto's energy, allowing Uryuu to relax a notch when he sensed it. "I like your resolution!" Yamamoto genuinely smiled, and Souken let go of his grandson to better-suited hands. Uryuu didn't notice, as he was distracted by the overwhelming wave of something cool as excess particles of Yamamoto's inner energy passed through Uryuu's being and grasped a hold of him before sensing no hostility and thus letting go. Yamamoto didn't even seem to notice it as he slung an arm around Uryuu like they were old buds and excitedly but soothingly chatted about Dying Will Flames and the Rain attribute as he led the way to a place to train.

In the middle of a forest located absolutely nowhere, Uryuu discovered that his "mistake" was actually a form of energy known only to man, and not the spiritual races Uryuu was educated about by his grandfather. "There are waves in the physical body, you see," Yamamoto explained as he held up his hand with fingers spread apart. "Think of cables looping around your fingers and back to your core near the heart, where the amount of energy running through your wavelengths depends on your resolve. People can have as many as all seven attributed waves, but accessing them is as instinctive as moving your ears or lifting one eyebrow; you have to discover them, not be taught how. One attribute will be easier to use than the other; most people go without discovering more than one for all their life." Yamamoto sheepishly scratched his head in admittance he was one of such people.

"Ghosts and zombies have energy moving freely about them without any cables having to guide it, though I imagine there are downsides that come with that." Uryuu soon learned that as well-meaning and cheery Yamamoto was, understanding of the spiritually supernatural — or even advanced mathematics, really — went over his head. "Honestly, 'Dera is better at this stuff than I am, but I can explain these things easily enough," Yamamoto whispered with a playful glance at his silver-haired companion, who levelled a glare at the jockey when he realised he was the subject of conversation. Yamamoto just waved it off with an amused smile.

Training on Uryuu's rain flames continued in similar fashion for the rest of the week, where Yamamoto would do his best to give an answer to Uryuu's well-thought inquiries, and Uryuu would grasp the nature of his physically-originating energy and find harmony in working with it, instead of wrestling it to obedience like he could with reiatsu. "Flames are a reflection of one's emotions," Yamamoto explained, "albeit a high-density energy form of them. You can only command flames to do your bidding just as you can your own emotions." It explained Uryuu's sensitivity to those with a lot of presence; if those with "loose energy" like Ryuuken and Souken were close enough or casually gave off enough energy, Uryuu could catch a whiff of their generally dominant emotion.

"You're getting there," Yamamoto observed at the end of the week. "Your control is really good, especially as even I don't know how to make a bow and arrow out of flames!" Uryuu mumbled how Yamamoto was a swordsman, not an archer, but the young Quincy was more than resigned to his tutor's often oblivious character. "As you know, rain flames have the characteristic of tranquility, meaning they bestow pacification upon opponents or objects. They can rob an opponent of strength."

A hint of mischief lit up in Yamamoto's eyes, and Uryuu apprehensively waited, more than aware by then how the swordsman's secret taste for playful misbehaviour could draw out explosive reactions from the one whom Uryuu learned to be called "Gokudera" or simply "'Dera." Apparently the silverette was a hot-blooded dynamite user in attribute to his partially Italian heritage, and his background of being raised in the Italian mafia.

Yamamoto revealed a sword pendant hanging from his chain necklace, previously hidden underneath his shirt, and Uryuu only got a happy wink from Yamamoto as a warning before the jockey called out, "Kojirou!" A pulse of invisible energy made itself known, followed by the flutter of something blue coming out of the pendant. A swallow-like bird made a loop in the sky before perching on Yamamoto's raised fingers with a merry tweet in reflection of its master's personality.

"Rain flames can also rob an opponent of the capacity to move," Yamamoto shared, before he unwrapped his bamboo sword from its cloth covering and mumbled something indecipherable even to Uryuu under his breath as he swung at a stream of water nearby. The bamboo drew itself from the water, reborn as a beautiful katana, but the miniature tsunami that caught the tail-end of the sharp Gokudera was what kept the focus of Uryuu's attention.

"Baseball nut!" Gokudera yelled, and sticks of explosives seemingly materialised inbetween his fingers. "Mm, 'Dera, did anyone tell you that you resemble a drowned cat when you're wet?" Yamamoto innocently replied with something sparkling in his eyes. Gokudera's brow twitched. "You _made_ me wet, idiot!" Of course, the silverette's speech was punctuated with a toss of dynamite, and Uryuu's archer eyes caught the odd twitch of the sticks before they rocketed in unexpected directions. Yamamoto seemed to see the dynamite and their paths just fine, as he raised his sword to cut the wicks of those immediately near him and send a wave of water at the row behind.

"Ne, Ishida," Yamamoto hummed, "why don't you try taking down 'Dera's dynamite with your arrows? Using rain flames, of course." Uryuu should have expected this, but the archer followed along anyway, casting aside his brief wonder at Yamamoto's last comment about rain flames being able to rob opponents' movements as he struggled to keep up with Gokudera's erratic dynamite. Uryuu trusted the silverette to dodge his arrows when they didn't hit their mark, but Gokudera wasn't a "fellow Vongola guardian" of Yamamoto's for nothing.

Yamamoto stepped out one point along the fight, and Uryuu felt pressured by Gokudera's overwhelming number of explosives and unpredictable attack methods. Sometimes the sticks jerked to a different route; other times they followed through their path and forced a surprised Uryuu to jump aside while maintaining his bow and arrow in a narrow dodge. Gokudera must have been a sort of genius as well, because the silverette took advantage of his differently-sized dynamite to mess with Uryuu's perception of their locations, and Uryuu's charred clothing attested to how often he failed to realise the dynamite's true distances. When a round of dynamite got too close to Uryuu, he desperately pulled his bow to face the oncoming threat and fire, but he was too late.

Or not.

Uryuu sensed more than saw Yamamoto's rain flames coming at the dynamite from the sky, and Uryuu looked up to see the bird from earlier flying in circles above the dynamite. "High-frequency rain flames invisible to the naked eye," Yamamoto described. "They can freeze objects in place with the tranquility effect." Gokudera didn't seem offended by Yamamoto's interference, or even irritated. The silverette approached Uryuu with his hands shoved back in his pockets and a lit cigarette between his teeth. Aside, Yamamoto waved the smoke away — "It's bad for an athlete's lungs, 'Dera!" — while the dynamite harmlessly exploded behind the three of them, their intensity lessened due to the pacifying effect by Yamamoto's rain flames.

"Your week's over," Gokudera stated, and Uryuu inwardly frowned, wondering if his — admittedly fun — training lessons or whatever were ending. Yamamoto smiled supportively at Uryuu. This was it? They were just going to leave Uryuu with the "almost there" flame control he had?

"Your fighting style is mid- to long-range combat; we're incompatible, Ishida," Yamamoto said. Uryuu forced himself to not let his sadness and frustration show. "Gokudera is a storm flame user, so he can't teach you how to draw the full potential of your rain flames," the swordsman went on, "especially with storm flames having a disintegrating characteristic that is suited for offense unlike rain's naturally defensive traits."

"Which is why you should be prepared," Gokudera spoke directly to Uryuu for the first time, and Uryuu looked up at the flicker of anticipation in Gokudera's energy. "I won't go easy on you. The baseball nut here introduced to you flames — I'm going to give you experience fighting with them." Gokudera took his hands out of his pockets, shifting his shirt and revealing an elaborate belt buckle before the air stilled in anticipation of an upcoming explosion of power.

Before Uryuu was prepared, a perfect, spherical blast of red energy — wilder and harsher than anything Uryuu knew, as well as raging with an underlying capability of widespread destruction that had Uryuu immensely glad that he wasn't an enemy of Gokudera's — followed, and when Uryuu's sight cleared up and his body had marginally calmed from its jitteriness of encountering hyper energy too unknown and encompassing, he observed that Gokudera was surrounded by circles on red fire and a small leopard kitten.

"It's been a while I've done this," Gokudera muttered unsatisfied to himself, and he raised his left arm. Stormy winds whipped around the arm as chaotic energy condensed itself to a more solid form. Uryuu kept a firm hold on his glasses to prevent them from breaking or flying off as his eyes stared intently at the shape the red flames were taking.

"'Dera is the Vongola Famiglia's best archer," Yamamoto finally stated, and Uryuu glanced at him. The swordsman smiled. "The human world isn't so boring, Ishida. While the shinigami, Quincy, and whatnot worry over life and the afterlife, us of the Trinisette watch over the stability of time and space. You can imagine we prefer not to mess with spiritual politics; our abilities can attract the wrong kind of attention, and individuals — alive or dead — can get greedy. I had never heard of Quincy or shinigami until recently when your old man contacted Tsuna, but let me tell you that Quincy aren't the only superhero archers around here; Smokin' Bomb Hayato has been compared to the best archer of all mafia time who went by the name of G."

A flaming crossbow empty of arrows sat on Gokudera's arm, and the silverette exhaled, weary after not having used flame arrows in a long time. "I would have preferred G's archery if we still had box weapons," he huffed, his comment meant for Yamamoto, who nodded in understanding. Gokudera suddenly twitched, and he glared at the swordsman. "Who said you could use my first name!"

"Hm? You mean Smokin' Bomb _Hayato?_" Yamamoto teased. Uryuu raised a brow. Hs new tutor had a name in the criminal world? "Gokudera-san," Uryuu quickly interjected before Yamamoto could get the silverette to explode, "if I can already shoot arrows using flames, what are you planning to teach me?" The silverette looked at Uryuu and smirked. "Flame Arrow," he muttered as he faced the other end of the clearing they made, and the ground shuddered as a beam of storm flames covered the length of the clearing in no time and completely destroyed a tree. And a row of trees behind it.

Gokudera turned around to face Uryuu. "No one who learns flame archery under me is going to walk away with sissy arrows like the ones you have right now." The young Quincy tried not to take offense to that. "Maybe thin, laser-like arrows work best with reiatsu," Gokudera said, "but don't imagine objects when fighting with flames. Think, 'this is my resolution!' and let your flames do the rest." "Wait," Uryuu cut in, struggling with agreeing to Gokudera's statement, "isn't precision necessary when it comes to high-energy archery? Your shot just now reflected that."

"Ishida." He evenly met Gokudera's eyes, which were burning with a resolution that startled Uryuu to silence in their intensity. "Quincy take energy from particles around them," Gokudera proved he understood the details of spiritual energy to an unexpected depth. Maybe Yamamoto wasn't kidding when he claimed Gokudera was known as "the Italian genius?" "But Dying Will Flames rely on willpower. Precision is good in archery, but when _forming_ flame arrows, it's redundant. You will only run out of energy to make arrows when your will stops burning." "Or when your waves are overused, but that can be solved with lots of practice!" Yamamoto cheerily added on the side.

Uryuu nodded in understanding. Those who fought with spiritual energy lasted until their reserves were spent, but Dying Will Flame users lasted until their resolve burnt out. Uryuu's ability to use flames depended on his mindset; the moment he faltered, he'd be done.

"Show me what you can do," Gokudera gestured for Uryuu to fire arrows using flames, and Yamamoto grinned as he and Gokudera stood side-by-side while Uryuu fired an impressive shot that flew through the air like when Yamamoto's swallow would dive, before the shot cut through a tree and left a hollow circle in the trunk. Yamamoto whistled as Uryuu prepared to do it again, this time aiming to cut through two trees.

"You're getting excited, aren't you, 'Dera?" the swordsman hummed lowly to the side. Gokudera scoffed in denial. "There just aren't enough flame archers," he claimed, but Yamamoto wasn't fooled, and Gokudera didn't expect him to be. "Ishida is quite the quick learner~" Gokudera cuffed Yamamoto up the head, to which the baseball star laughed at the expected reaction. "It's okay, 'Dera, you don't have to admit that teaching is fun." "I don't like children." "Ishida is only two years younger than us." "Young enough." Yamamoto laughed at his friend's character.

* * *

**A/N: This idea popped up in my head when Yhwach told Ishida that he was interested in him because Ishida should have died on the day of the Auswhälen – or something along those lines – but there was something about Ishida that made him different from other Quincy. The first idea that came to my mind was dying will flames, and this idea has pestered me ever since. Anyone want me to expand this from a one-shot?**


End file.
